Doing What I Can

This post is just going to be about fitness.

My shoulder got fucked up again back in January. I don't know what caused it, only that I can't lift any weights.

At first, this was a mild annoyance. I already knew I could run to stay fit, and planned on running and doing strength-training routines on my lower body, but that plan went to shit when I hopped on a treadmill and couldn't finish because the shock from my feet hitting the treadmill went up into my shoulder and felt like my arm was being torn off. So I stopped working out altogether.

Not exercising naturally led to weight gain. I'd check the scale each week to find I had packed on another couple of pounds. My pants were getting harder to fit into. I got to 279 before I decided to start dieting again. I'm off carbs until further notice.

I kept getting annoyed at not being able to work out, too. The gym is supposed to be my happy place, and not being able to go to my happy place makes me very unhappy.

After reading some of my old blog posts, I found this one that helped put things into perspective:

If you're not bedridden, you can work out. If your legs are broken, you can train your upper body. If you have a broken arm, you can do squats. So long as you aren't a quadriplegic there's something you can do.

After seeing that, I asked myself, "Well, what can you do?"

For cardio, running was definitely out. So was the elliptical, as I wouldn't be able to constantly push and pull the arms for more than a minute before giving into the pain. That left the stationary bike.

For strength training, I couldn't use any free weights, so I settled on using machines. My main leg exercise is the leg press. I'm also working my core. Anything related to muscles at or above the torso are off limits, though.

These aren't my favorite exercises. I've grown to hate exercise machines, and I've always hated the stationary bike, but at least I'm doing something.

I see the same sports medicine doctor that fixed my shoulder the first time in a few weeks. Hopefully he'll have an answer as to why my shoulder is all jacked up and be able to fix it again. I hope he can, because not being able to strengthen my upper body sucks.